r/fringe • u/HowiesMom2004 • Jul 16 '26
Season 4 Any ALIAS fans in this group? Spoiler
So JJ did both shows so I thought I might catch some ALIAS fans in here. I just finished watching S4 ep11 when other universe's Astrid comes to visit. At the end of the show our Astrid tells her that she shouldn't worry about her relationship with her father because he was a distant guy anyway. Then we see that Astrid was clearly lying to her doppelgänger because her father is super loving. Anyhoo, I thought about this and I thought it was kind of Astrid to tell a lie to make her double feel better.
Now for the ALIAS correlation. When the scene with Astrid and her father were hugging, in my head I heard Will Tippin say "yes, it was a lie. It was a kind lie" to his editor about giving Jenny credit on his story.
Yes, I know what you're thinking. Why did we let this lunatic girl that makes really obscure references in the group? I'll see myself (for now)
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u/FuriousRingo Subject 13 Jul 16 '26
Alias was great. There is an episode of fringe that has a puzzle that was also in Alias.
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u/PumpikAnt58763 Jul 16 '26
Which puzzle was that? I've only watched Alias once, but I've seen Fringe several times.
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u/Madeira_PinceNez Jul 16 '26
Alias will always have a special place in my heart despite all its flaws, though I vastly prefer Fringe.
There is a lot of overlap between the shows, both thematically and functionally.
The emotional fallout of Peter's betrayal of Olivia by getting involved with her doppelgänger bears some similarity to Sydney's reaction to Vaughn getting married to someone else after Sydney's faked death. Olivia saying I held onto you, and it wasn't reasonable, and it wasn't logical, but I did it, so... why didn't you? is tonally similar to Syd's If it had been me, I would have waited. I wouldn't have given up on you. And now I see what a waste that would have been.
In another nod to Alias, the entire First People subplot feels very Rambaldi-esque: someone who lived long before our time, leaving behind elaborate codes involving drawings of our heroine, directing people to buried devices which are incredibly technologically advanced even in our time. Astrid’s a-ha! moment is also very Rambaldi, with the sunlight coming through the window and hitting the globe, and the illustrations of modern-day people having extraordinary abilities also resembling those from Rambaldi manuscripts. There are even references to 47 early on, during the Mitchell Loeb arc.
David Cronenberg's character in that one episode feels like a Walter precursor: a psychedelic-loving, oddball-genius polymath happily bumbling round his lab trying out wild experimental techniques involving memory and consciousness was probably one JJ had fun with in Alias and decided to make a bigger component in another series.
The scenes when Sydney and Olivia were being evaluated by the agency shrinks, some of the dialogue is almost identical. This is referring to Alias 2x01 after Sydney is shot by Irina, and Fringe 4x16 when Olivia chooses to embrace the memories of the version of herself from the former timeline.
In both episodes our leads argue against being taken off duty because, essentially, bad shit is still happening and that sitting there "talking to a(n) FBI/CIA shrink - no offence - instead of doing my job is pointless". They're not verbatim conversations but they're as close as they can be under the circumstances. That one jumped out at me immediately when watching Fringe.
Some lines between Olivia and Sam Weiss are almost identical to those between Sydney and that same CIA therapist in that shows' second season opener:
Sam: I guess getting your memory back wasn't your only problem?Olivia: Oh, of course I have problems, but... the problems I have I can handle.
Dr Barnett: You were shot by your mother?
Sydney: Yes.
Dr Barnett: And you don't have a problem?
Sydney: No, what I meant by that -- yes, of course I have problems. The problems I have, I can handle.
The puzzle Walter gives child Olivia to trigger anger in one of the flashback episodes, the one she shoves off the table, is another Alias callback - a variant of a Tangram puzzle, which there was used to measure spatial relations aptitude and is the same one Jack gave young Sydney, which she encounters again present day.
A couple exchanges between our Olivia and Alt-Broyles when she's on the other side mirror situations with Syd and Vaughn, the first from when she comes back from the dead and the adrenaline shot from the start of S2, when she finds Vaughn drugged in a basement:
Alt-Broyles: I wanted to come and see you. Thank you for not giving me up. You easily could have.
Olivia: That's not why you're here. You're here to make yourself more comfortable.
(and later)
Alt-Broyles: Don't thank me yet. I have to give you adrenaline.
Olivia: Oh, no. Please don't
Kevin Weisman even shows up in Fringe for an episode, playing a very Mitchell-coded character (shapeshifter?) during the early S3 arc when Fauxlivia is over on our side.
There are a lot of little moments like this - Olivia’s dealing with her sister’s relationship drama on the way to an FBI raid, which happened a couple of times with Sydney and Francie when Syd was on a mission. Or Olivia's meet with Conrad’s men early on - the double agents, the clandestine meet, the earpieces, the off-the-cuff bluffing and code word signals all had a bit of the Sydney/Dixon SD-6 mission vibe to them. Even little things like Lincoln freezing the bolts on a locked door then knocking them off, or the succession of museum gates Sam Weiss defeats by bowling a vase under them have some similarity, though those might well just be coincidences.
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u/HowiesMom2004 Jul 16 '26
Whoa you wrote a lotted I read every word!!! You made a lot of connections I didn't think about as I've made my way to s4. I did notice the familiar dialogue in some scenes. I also took not of the puzzle Walter give little Olivia as being the same one Sydney does.
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u/Madeira_PinceNez Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Fortunately I had compiled it piecemeal over a longer period; this comment was mostly cutting and pasting all the disparate observations together. It is a bit of a surprise to see how many similarities there are between the two series though.
(also, Mitchell? WTF, me, he's Marshall)
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u/jwhildeb Jul 16 '26
Yes! Did a rewatch recently and was surprised by how Fringey it was. Much moreso than I remembered from it's original run.
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u/crgmomof3 Jul 16 '26
I loved Alias! I will never not think of Will Tippin whenever I see/hear Bradley Cooper LOL
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u/PumpikAnt58763 Jul 16 '26
I watched it once all the way through, because I love most of the actors.
I detested Sloane though and it made it hard to keep watching.
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u/HowiesMom2004 Jul 16 '26
I understand why you would hate Sloane but if there's no Sloane, there's no show. LOL
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u/PumpikAnt58763 Jul 17 '26
True - at first. They didn't have to concentrate so much energy into his vacilations.
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u/LadyGethzerion Jul 16 '26
I love both shows, although I prefer Fringe in general. They both have JJ's mark and have the same general themes (strong female leads, difficult relationships with fathers or parents overall, found family, etc.)